A mentor does not buy, sell or negotiate. A mentor provides a
service. In essence, mentoring is simply helping someone else
play their cards right and become successful in their home
business or other endeavour.
Thus defined, mentoring has been a business practice for a long
time. Recent estimates indicate that a large majority of
successful people have used a mentor as a standard business
practice. Mentors choose to help others reach their goals for
various reasons, the most common reason being to gain support and
help for their own projects and from a true desire to assist
others. After all, what good is information if you don't share it
with someone who needs a mentor?
Many mentors help a peer or friend move up the ladder in order to
achieve personal satisfaction and develop friendships. Also,
you've probably experienced a friend saying, "I helped you, and
now I need help too..." Basically, being or having a mentor is an
exchange of services and friendship.
One reason mentoring is popular, especially in today's economy,
is that it provides free training that normally would be provided
at special training classes costing a lot of money. Mentors
willingly provide this service, as it is simply the bottom line
method of training with little or no cash. In times of little or
no cash flow, mentoring is a highly desirable commodity, and
mentoring is becoming even more widespread. Mentoring offers a
way to hold onto cash while continuing to get advice and
training.
In addition to saving costs, mentoring can improve cash flow and
liquidity by avoiding the high cost of formal training. For
anyone who is starting up a home business, this is vitally
important. For the individual who is lucky enough to have a
mentor, it makes it possible to save existing funds for those
purchases where cash is necessary.
To successfully become a mentor, you must think in terms of a
trainer, a financial expert, and a technical advisor if you want
to help someone start their home business. After all, that is the
precise reason for mentoring - to bring together an individual
with success.
Your first task is to determine exactly what the individual hopes
to accomplish. As a one-person training staff, you will need to
know everything about the potential home business as well as get
to know the personal hopes and dreams of your protégé. In effect,
you are providing your expertise and/or time to help another
person achieve their goals for success.
Having a mentor to help you successfully start up your home
business is a stroke of luck if you are on the receiving end. You
explain your wants or needs to your mentor and he/she will
provide you with suggestions based on their past experiences. You
will be wise to listen to these suggestions, as they are mostly
methods that have already been tried, tested and proven to work.
Your home business mentor can help you with advice on start-up
costs, technical advice, and guide you through the process of
establishing sales leads, getting the funding you need, and most
likely provide you with the names of others who are specialized
in their respective fields.
Why go it alone, making the same mistakes that have already been
made by others? Let a mentor help you on the road to success by
giving you the benefit of their experience.
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